Michael Dorgan, Jakarta – It's 5:30 a.m. and a new day is dawning. The man many here would like to see as this country's next president has been rousted from a short sleep at a spartan Islamic center and is being rushed to the airport for his next campaign stop.
Just weeks ago, openly running against President Suharto would have seemed inconceivable. But with Indonesia in the throes of a financial crisis and worsening social unrest, Suharto's opponents, though lacking a clear plan and organized movement, think the time is right to mount a bold and risky challenge to Asia's longest ruling autocrat.
"I have to be realistic because to challenge Suharto is not an easy game," Amien Rais says in thickly accented but precise English. "He is still very powerful, and he still controls the armed forces and the most influential and biggest political party. And the chance to defeat him is, of course, very, very little."
Very little, indeed, unless extraordinary events intervene – which is what Rais and other Suharto opponents are counting on.
After 32 years in office, President Suharto's grip on Indonesia's political process is so firm that Rais (pronounced Rye-is) and the only other prominent presidential challenger, Megawati Sukarnoputri, have no chance whatsoever of winning next month's election. Their only hope – one fraught with danger for themselves and their nation – is that the election will be negated by the country's worsening financial crisis. The scenario they envision is this:
Social unrest already erupting in Jakarta and other cities will deepen and spread, leading ultimately to irrepressible riots that will drive Suharto from office. Rais and Megawati, who represent diverse constituencies but who have formed what they call a "moral coalition," will then ride the wave of discontent all the way to the presidential palace. There, they will set up an interim government and stage free and open elections.
But theirs is a treacherous course. Suharto this week ordered the military to take "stern action" against anyone who threatens the existing order. This leaves little doubt that if the opposition leaders' challenge moves from words to actions, they and their followers will be swiftly suppressed.
Rais, an American-educated university professor who heads Indonesia's 28-million-member Muhammadiyah Muslim cultural organization, and Megawati, who in 1996 was ousted by the government as head of the 20-million-member Indonesian Democratic Party, both have been outspoken in their criticisms, sending volley after volley of verbal missiles into the Suharto camp.
But they are vague about how they will force him from office. They also are vague about what specific policies they would promote if elected. Both call for greater democracy and rule of law, but are skimpy on details.
In this time of great economic uncertainty, that causes unease among some potential followers, who note that neither has any experience in governance. Some dismiss Megawati as a purely inspirational figure with few political skills, while others worry that Rais, whose organization operates Islamic schools throughout the country, might promote an Islamic agenda at the expense of Indonesia's minorities.
Subagio Anam, one of Megawati's top aides, said much of the vagueness and ambiguity surrounding her and Rais are due to circumstances. Both, he said, are constrained in how far they can go in challenging Suharto.
"We cannot create (an organized opposition movement) ourselves," he said. "If we go to the streets, we will be arrested immediately. But if there is spontaneous unrest, then we will jump." Megawati, in an interview at her spacious south Jakarta estate, said risk is not the only reason the opposition movement lacks form. She said Indonesia's financial and political crisis is so acute that there's no time to develop a comprehensive strategy or formal structure.
"What we're trying to build is a kind of pro-democracy mechanism," she said. "There's no time to build an organization." But what is a "pro-democracy mechanism?"
Channeling outrage
Many Suharto critics here fret that public outrage over the injustices and excesses of his regime will dissipate into Indonesia's hot and humid air unless opposition leaders channel it into a coherent and effective movement.
"When my friends get together and talk, I'm always convinced there's going to be a revolution tomorrow," said one young dissident who recently completed a two-year prison term for criticizing Suharto. "But then I go home, take a shower and go to bed. And when I wake up, nothing's happened."
That dissident, along with about three-dozen others, showed up at Megawati's home one recent evening for a discussion group that Megawati turned into a pep rally. In a tone alternately sweet and scolding, she told the group it was time to stop talking and start acting.
A few days earlier, Rais also called for action in a meeting with representatives of more than a dozen student, labor, religious and democracy groups. "Think big, start small, act now," he told them.
But both Megawati and Rais stop short of saying just what sort of action they would like to see. Supporters fear the lack of a clear strategy greatly increases chances that anticipated riots will lead to chaos and misguided attacks on the nation's ethnic-Chinese minority, who are widely resented for their economic dominance. Hundreds of thousands of them were slaughtered in the social upheaval surrounding Suharto's rise to power in 1965.
An anthropologist noted that the word "amok" – defined in Webster's dictionary as "to rush about in a frenzy to kill" – is of Indonesian origin. "Our culture has no middle ground of being critical and civilized," she said. "We are either amok or totally accepting."
If Rais and Megawati fail to lead their followers step-by-step toward a more democratic society, she said, then they must accept partial responsibility for the blood that will flow in the riots that they hope will sweep Suharto from office.
So far Suharto seems secure. His popularity may be low, but he is still very much in control. He selects, directly or indirectly, virtually every person serving in a position of authority, right down to the heads of villages. Potential threats to his rule have been so ruthlessly suppressed that up until a few months ago, the mere public suggestion that he step down could land the critic in prison.
Crack in armor
But the collapse of Indonesia's economy has left a crack in Suharto's political armor. Mounting disgust over the widespread corruption that has contributed to the country's financial woes has spilled onto the front pages of the nation's newspapers, igniting an unprecedented debate over whether the ailing 76-year-old leader should be given a seventh five-year term.
If put to a public vote, the outcome would seem certain. From the corporate executives in Jakarta's high-rise office towers to the peasants in the rice paddies of West Sumatra, Indonesians seem nearly unanimous in their disapproval of Asia's longest reigning ruler.
No such votes are held, however. Presidential candidates must be nominated by approved political parties, and the winner is selected by the 1,000-member national assembly, almost all members of which are handpicked by Suharto or his supporters. So when Suharto recently announced his willingness to serve another term, the only matter to be decided was who he would choose for vice president.